Monday, May 15, 2006

Connected Desktop? Wazzat?

What I define as "The Desktop" is the machine that sits on our tables, is used almost exlusively by us, and the runs Windows and MS Office. I know, I know, there are plenty of other non-Microsoft users, but most people - as it is for me - this desktop-microsoft linkage is a given.

Our desktop has two spaces - a personal one, and a public one. The personal one is intensely private and has its own, quite often self created, word documents, spreadsheets, text document or any other such desktop applications. This space is barricaded inside out desktop. We want no one snooping in there. The other public one is our window to the world, looks outward, and talks to the other information entities around us - internet, enterprise applications and such like.

These two worlds talk to each other using the magic keys of Cntrl-C and Cntrl-V. With these magic keys, we take data from one space to the other, without violating its boundaries. When the data moves into our personal space, it freezes - while the public world keeps on changes, keeing synch with the changed reality.

Keeping our personal space frozen in time is irksome. To make our personal space reflect real world. we need to use the Magic Keys. We need to get up, switch windows, start another application window, get what we want from the internet or any other such data source, select the required information, use the Magic keys, format it in properly and then put it in back in our personal space. And then, do the same over and over again if we wanted the latest. Aaarrgghhhhh....

Enter the Connected Desktop. A technology need born out of the necessity of keeping our personal desktop space up-to- date with the real time world, minimizing the need to open and close windows and using the magic keys. A mechanism that lets our personal documents in Word, Excel and others be refreshed with the latest data available from the public space.

Isn't it time that we use other ways than the old Cntrl-C and Cntrl- V magic keys?